September 29, 2003

When NBC anchor Tom Brokaw went to Iraq, it was as if he was visiting a different country than that any other TV journalist had reported from, because he left Baghdad and many of his reports actually had an optimistic tone.

Why? Perhaps because Brokaw has chronicled the Greatest Generation and World War II, a time of patience instead of attention deficit disorder and a demand for overnight success. Nowadays, one can imagine critics instantly howling for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s head over the deaths on D-Day.

It’s worth remembering, as critics revive their Vietnam quagmire comparisons, that over 57,000 U.S. troops died in Vietnam and so far the U.S. death toll in Iraq is 308, fewer than the 343 firemen who were killed on 9/11.

Every death is a tragedy. But that doesn’t make the war a failure. In fact, it is a success.

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